


Three Restaurants

by Sholio



Category: White Collar
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:46:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8496037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Three times Sara and Peter had lunch or dinner together, from pre- to post-series.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [veleda_k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veleda_k/gifts).



**2005**

 

The federal agent was already seated when Sara arrived at the restaurant. It was a bar and grill. Typical fed. She hadn't picked the meeting place. Sara had eaten at plenty of cheap dives in her time, but this week she'd just had three grand land in her bank account after recovering a heavily insured Maltese (the cat, not the falcon), and was more in an eggplant parmesan sort of mood.

"Special Agent Burke," she said with a smile. She rarely forgot a face, or a name. "Does this mean the FBI has found my Raphael?"

"It's the owner's Raphael, but no, afraid not." Burke gestured with a menu to a chair. "Have a seat."

"I'd rather stand. Why are you calling me if you don't have my painting, Agent? I don't appreciate having my time wasted."

"We don't have the painting. What we have is the guy who stole it." He tapped the back of the neighboring chair with his menu. "So let's talk about it. They do a great porterhouse here, by the way."

What the hell. As she clawed her way up the ladder of success, most of her meetings had been in five-star restaurants, with the sort of people who looked at her sideways if she ordered anything less dainty than a salad and a glass of white wine. It had been a long time since she'd had a steak at the sort of place where the menu described meat in terms of pounds.

Anyway, right now she didn't care if Burke had decided to meet her at McDonald's. At long last. _Caffrey._

"Is he talking?" she asked, taking the offered seat. "Making deals?"

"Dunno. Not my area. I needed to ask how you feel about testifying against him, before I drop your name to the D.A."

Sara barked a laugh. "Are you kidding? You couldn't pay me enough not to."

The waiter came by their table just then. She ordered the porterhouse, medium rare, and a pint of whatever ale they had on draft. Apparently it wasn't a white wine sort of day.

 

***

 

**2010**

 

Burke -- Peter -- looked visibly uncomfortable in Montebello, where Sara had booked a table, but he'd said the lunch was on the FBI's dime, and if that was the case, then she was going to damn well have lunch at one of the most expensive restaurants in the city ... or at least one of the most expensive that she could reasonably consider eating at, without feeling ridiculously pretentious.

"Sorry for roping you into all of this," Peter said, adjusting his jacket as he sat down in a way that made her think he felt underdressed for the ambiance.

"The FBI is buying me lunch; I expect that means they're not done roping yet." She pushed a menu across the table to him.

"It's really more that you had to live in a corner of our conference room for days. Not that there weren't extenuating circumstances ..." He shrugged.

Sara frowned at him. "Is the FBI buying me lunch, or are _you_ buying me lunch?"

"Me," Peter admitted. "I thought you could use it after we asked you to consult on a case that almost got you killed multiple times."

If she didn't know that he was very happily married, she would've thought it was the clumsiest pick-up that she'd been subjected to in some time. As it was, after examining it from every angle, she could only conclude that he really did just mean to make up for the multiple attempts on her life and having to deal with Caffrey again after all these years. Not that the latter had ended up as unpleasant as she'd feared, but that was a thought to examine for another day.

"So what the heck _is_ molecular gastronomy?" Peter asked, studying the menu with a wary eye.

Sara laughed. "To be honest, I haven't got a clue. But I do know there's a place around the corner that makes great burgers, and I could really go for one. Care for a change of venue?"

 

***

 

**2016**

 

There was a fish-and-chips shop right across from Sara's Tube stop, the kind of dive with a lighted menu on the wall, plastic tables, and battered cod drowned in so much salt and vinegar that you couldn't taste the fish. Naturally Peter loved it. She'd thought he would.

"You know, I'm not much for fish," he said through a mouthful, "but if you fry it enough ..."

Sara reached for a chip, which she was still training herself not to think of as French fries. They'd already gotten the important part of the conversation out of the way when she'd met him at the airport: _Neal is alive._ Her world was shivered to its foundations, and from here it was just ... talking, and coping.

"Have you seen him yet?" she asked.

Peter shook his head, his attention on his food. "Not really sure how to get ahold of him."

Bullshit, she thought; he was FBI, and more than that, he was Peter Burke. He could if he wanted to.

But she had no desire to probe Peter's emotional state, any more than she wanted to examine her own too closely. The important thing right now, in the moment-to-moment, was that she was having lunch with a friend she hadn't seen in over a year. And they had a lot to catch up on.

It had taken Neal to bring them together again ... but Neal had brought them together in the first place, and right now, with both of them holding onto an emotional edge, maybe that was what mattered. There was a third person in the mix -- Mozzie -- but she suspected he was difficult to get hold of right now, as well.

Sometimes you just needed to talk to someone who understood. And she was suddenly, intensely grateful that Peter hadn't told her over the phone. Dealing with this was hard enough. Dealing with it alone would have been harder.

"Have you been to London before?" she asked.

Peter glanced up from his half-eaten battered cod, though he seemed to be avoiding her eyes. "Nope, first time." The tone was flippant; the underlying subtext anything but.

"Then let me show you some of the sights." She had a lot of vacation coming; she hadn't taken a day of it in more than a year.

And often, sightseeing was more fun if you had someone to do it with.

Tomorrow ... was tomorrow. There were a lot of things to deal with. And all of those things would still be there later.

Peter glanced up from his paper-wrapped fish to flash her a quick, tired smile. "I'd like that."


End file.
